Improving TCP performance over wireless links using link-layer retransmission and explicit loss notification

In order to support the mobility of computers during communication, the transport control protocol (TCP) connections between fixed host and mobile host often traverse wired and wireless networks, and the recovery of the losses due to wireless transmission error is much different from congestion control. This paper analyzes the interaction between TCP and link layer retransmission scheme when the correlated packet are losses handled, indicates that a higher value of the maximum number of successive link layer timeout retransmissions has an adverse effect on TCP ability to perform congestion control rapidly. To achieve a better TCP performance, the paper proposes a strategy combining link-layer selective-reject automatic repeat request (ARQ) with explicit loss notification mechanism, which can respond to congestion quickly while keeping wireless link more reliable, and make TCP react to the different packet losses more suitably.